Page 3 of A Pact for Porter

I went back to the motel to check in, and they were fabulous. The place was far from fancy, but the staff was so welcoming, I didn’t care. They told me about the restaurants nearby and where I could safely shift. It was definitely shifter, but I didn’t care about any of that.

I went straight to my room, plopped on the bed with my tablet, and started drawing and drawing and drawing. I pulled swatches of different plants to make a collage for each of the habitat areas. I didn’t get up from that spot until my battery died and the sun was already starting to come up again.

I’m going to hate past-Chip later today.

I forced myself to put the tablet away, took a quick shower, and climbed into bed. I had one more day until I met with Karma and her mate, but I was pretty much ready. This project was exactly what I was looking for.

Chapter Three

Porter

Angus and I stayed in touch after we left school. We were still on our own, quite a bit, living far from our families, and it was good to have someone to share the trials and tribulations of everyday life. My work was fulfilling, and paid well, allowing me to buy a nice townhouse with two bedrooms and one bath. Plenty for a single wolf.

This was actually my second job since graduation, The first had been fine but didn’t promote as quickly as I’d wanted and was very far from my family. Now, I was only a few hours away and they loved to come visit. I’d even paid them and the pack back over time for everything they did to help me with my education. And was currently sponsoring another young wolf who was doing the same. I minded the visits not at all because the only thing less than terrific about my life was occasional loneliness.

Angus was always there to answer the phone and cheer me up. Or sometimes I cheered him up when he needed it. My former roommate’s career was far more exciting than mine, taking him to different locations, and the highlight of my week was our Sunday afternoon video call where we filled one another in on what we were up to.

My part of the call didn’t take much time. Work was okay, the weather was hot/cold, whatever. Sometimes in an attempt to be interesting, I carried the phone outside and showed him whatever was going on in my garden. I wished I’d bought a house with more room to grow food and flowers, but it had been a good price for the area and I foolishly thought I would prefer a very small yard with minimal maintenance. Young people in the pack I grew up in spent most of their summer free pulling weeds and other tasks in the big gardens that fed us all winter, and I did not love that. It never occurred to me how much I would enjoy a garden of my own or I’d have chosen a different place to live with less indoor square footage and more outdoor.

Also closer to somewhere I could shift. My little backyard was overlooked by the second-story balconies of all the other homes nearby, and after taking my fur there late one full-moon night, the whole neighborhood was alive with rumors of a huge beast running rampant and eating all the pets.

I’d been toying with the idea of moving for a while, but it was expensive and time-consuming, and I decided to stay where I was until I met my mate. Perhaps they would already have a place they loved or maybe they would like this one. When I considered changing jobs, the same factor came into play.

My job paid well. I worked eight to five with an hour lunch, very little overtime or weekend work and no travel at all. I didn’t have to take things home to do, either. Was there a more perfect job for an alpha with a family?

It wasn’t even stressful, beyond being a little boring.

When/if my Fated showed up in my life, I would be glad I stuck it out. Images of sitting across from some faceless omega at dinner every night, laughing at what our equally faceless children told us about their day held more attraction than just doing something more interesting for those hours away from home.

Not that they would be faceless, of course, it was more like a space waiting to be filled with a beloved family. When I got home every night and ate takeout standing up in the kitchen, the disparity between how I lived and how I wished I lived was never more obvious.

And then, if it was still light outside, and the right season, I’d go out into the garden for a while and tend to my plants. I told them all my secrets and hopes and dreams, even what I didn’t share with Angus in our calls.

The years passed, and I found creative ways to use vertical space to increase my garden, but nothing else changed. My fated mate did not come to work at our office or bump into me in a supermarket cute-meet, or turn up on the morning runs I’d begun in college and still continued. And as my thirtieth birthday approached, I began to think that they were never coming. My fathers, who were happily fated, had always told me two things. One, I had to put myself out there because a fated was not coming to knock on my door. And two, not everyone had a fated mate, and a chosen could be “almost as good.” Taking that into account, I’d dated a number of omegas over the past eight years, and some of them had been very nice. Two or three I could have imagined a pleasant life with.

So, why wasn’t that enough?

Sitting on the ground next to my sunflowers, their heads hanging heavy with seed, I was mulling over my life when my phone buzzed in my shorts pocket. I pulled it out and instantly felt lighter. “Angus. How are you?”

“Doing great, Porter. I’ve just finished up a building for a college. Want to see pictures?”

“Absolutely.” I always wanted to see pictures. “What is this one?”

He launched into a description as my phone vibrated with the sent photos. My old roommate had skills like nothing I’d ever seen anywhere, which is what made him in such high demand. Beng an architect must be amazing. At least such a good one.

“You get better all the time. I wish I had something for you to work on.” I swiped through the pictures one by one. “Gorgeous.” He’d sure advanced since graduation. Which reminded me of something. If I was going to go for “chosen” and give up on Fate to provide someone in my life, why did it have to be a random when we’d made a pact? “Hey, I was just thinking—”

“Oh, can you hang on one second?”

“Sure.” He was gone longer than a second. “I’m back. What were you going to say?”

I cleared my throat. “Do you remember what we agreed to after graduation? You’re not seeing anyone, are you?”

“Nobody special, why? Oh! Are you serious?”

“I think so. We made a pact, friend. And we’re both turning thirty. What do you say?”

He was silent for so long, I got nervous. Then he laughed. “Let’s meet up somewhere and see about that. You’re my best friend, and I haven’t met anyone I’d rather spend my life with. I mean that sincerely.”